Guys is it possible and if so why isn’t it being done.
A glassing company with access to or ownership of a shaping machine that will let (for a fee) a backyarder or enthuisiest to customise or design from scratch a surfboard then have it machine shaped and glassed.
If a company was to do this what impact would it have on the industry
Chuck Norris says it will never work.
There’s tons of places around Los Angeles that do just that, namely our
own Ken Eber at Segway Composites.
Send that man a file and he can do it all from start to finish…he’s got the
foam, the cutter and an phenomenal glasser working all under one roof.
Surfding and Spence can (probably) do this as well, but I may be talking
out of turn here.
Impact on the industry: I continue to gladly give all three of those outfits
all available dispensable money in an attempt to sate my obsessions.
Check with Ken Ebert at Segway Composites. If I understand you and his website correctly, that’s exactly the sort of service he offers.
You can download the design program for free from his site, send him the file and he can plug it in to his machine. He has a glassing facility right there at the same factory. The one limitation I can see, and I may be wrong on this, is I think he does epoxy glassing only.
He stocks a complete inventory of EPS in various densities along with Warvel polyurethane and WMD blanks.
Contact him - he’s very helpful.
Most files that backyard shapers make are pretty rough. If you want to waste your money go a head and make my day!
Just don’t destroy my machine with a bogus file.
Most serious board builders have their best models scanned. Then that file will yield the best product.
The correct way to use CNC is to scan your shaped model. From there you can modify your model once you have your base recorded.
Whats the point in having a board made from a computer program without riding it first and making sure it’s worth investing the time and money into the model?
Unless it’s just to stroke your ego?
It will have no effect on the surf industry if backyard guys have their work done on a CNC. It’s all about Branding anyway.
If you have say a Channel Island or a JS for $625.00 in the rack and a unknown shaper that actually shapes well for $525.00 the board in the rack for $525 will sit in the rack until it turns yellow. The well know brand will move off the rack and get replaced with the same model so it too can be sold just as fast.
So regardles of how the board is made it does not matter one IOTA!
Branded well marketed boards will always do well regardless of the backyard movement. It’s very small. Most surfers just want to surf. To make surfboards you have to be a bit crazy! Were a small group. Doesn’t matter where on Earth your from the same rule applies.
I agree with all af this , I was wondering if it was happening.
Bussiness wise would it be better now days to be a glasser than a shaper. It is a shame I am the worlds worst glaser
Here! Here! I concurr! All the best shapers that have been around for awhile and have eastablished reputations have done exactly that. Hand shaping, experience, proven designs; result in a dublicated model basis.
buy a name brand board,scan it, get it cut, slap on a logo and away you go
better practise your glassing pandanus
Most CNC service will not scan a board for someone by another shaper.
Glassers do make more than the shaper these day!
What I don’t get is…what’s the point?
OK…so you create a design file…you have it cut on the machine…then you do what? Do a little sanding and have the same shop glass the board for you? Why?
Just buy a board from that company. Most of them will take a little time and design the board with you.
The ONLY difference is it has their name and logo on it not yours. (chances are their logo is cooler anyway LOL)
I agree with surfding. At that point it seems like it would just be about ego or something.
Besides, most of the really good local hand shapers will sit down with you and design a board to your liking.
If you are a shaper…shape…if you are a glasser…glass…if you want to make your own boards…learn to do both!
I’m trying to get this whole glassing thing down…OH GOD! SOMEBODY KILL ME!
Just my 1.874 cents
When I was down at Ken’s he showed me how he obtains the parameters on a finished board without actually scanning. On his machine he feels it’s faster to take some measurements on his jig device, plug in some key coordinates and let the program “connect the dots.”
I wouldn’t know myself on the rest of it. I’ve only done hand shapes and yes, there’s some ego tripping involved. Just trying to help the O.P. out.
Taking the measurements off the board and creating a file is called manual scanning. If your good you can get real close then tweak it from there.
Ken is a pretty smart guy so I’m sure he’s got it down. I’ve done it this way as well. Three years ago a I made a lot of files that way. Today I try and stay away from that method. I still prefere to do a digital scan because it is actually faster for me and more precise! Most professional board builders will not accept a manual scan to reproduce their models. However for the Backyard guy that only does a few per year the manual scan is not a bad way to go. If he’s not too pickey?
Ah surfding…You rule anyway!
You could probably do an outline with a crayon and be better than most peoples scans. LOL
I realized the tone of my last post may have seemed a little harsh.
It was not meant that way.
I should have framed it more like “Why would any mill/glassing house do it anyway?”
That would be more like it
OK, “manual scanning” it is.
For someone looking for a proven mass produced design by a professional, there are lots of options.
Precision and flawless replication are likely lower priority for the do-it-yourselfer. For the guy who wants to add a little personal creativity with his own design, why not?
The hundreds of home made boards posted in the resources section speak volumes… I think most of us just get a kick out of this hobby.
pandanus, it seems that there are a few around that do it. shapers.com.au offer the service.
i guess its already happening on a different level - I can think of more than a few major labels that have their boards machine shaped and glassed and even designed by a third party?
This french supplier of EPS blanks provides a free online software to order custom blanks (by the way, I’m the author of the software). The software is very user friendly. You design your outline and foil and then order your blank custom cut exactly according to your design. Blanks are cut with such a fine precision, that only rails and bottom contours need to be hand shaped.
Here’s the link (sorry, it’s in French) :
the impact on the industry
is simple.
The door is open for a user based
revo;ution a opposed to an oligarchial
control of the design and use trend .
I conjugate oligarchy with the hope that
it still means controled by a few powered up
individuals and institutions.
anarchy /democracy can be at odds
to this small group control reality.
where Marketing [capital M w/ intent]
is the real deciding factor in style trend…
the real users of progressive - adaptive
wave riding tools are truely few and far between.
this is a subculture in diffusion and dissolution.
The solid trends in surfing were well connected
by a direct monkey see monkey do effect
in the sixties adolecence of the petri dish of surfing
The pacific basin as a breeding medium
was closely connected
when all eyes were fixed on seasonal trends
north of the equator.
now the splatter effect of attentions
spread world wide there is no specific focus.
the focus is now like the video media explosiin
thousands of channels world wide
make for focus switch from
macrocosm to microcosm instantaneous
the ‘‘free’’ design revolution
will fit so well into this Impact statement
the ‘industry’ could find a new validation
by making truely advanced designs
inclusive rather than exclusive
making an everyman design
rather than an egocentric ‘my hot rider’
ride like joey -john-mike our team
rather than ride like yourself
and realize your own true self
with surfing as the quest tool.
there is an optimus
the optimum is a word
that is like the
math concept of
googooplex
all you need to add is a zero
and you achieve something greater.
at some point
you are just spending time
adding zeros.
competitive pressure only produces an artificial ‘winner’
collective effort in time will produce a greater dividend.
working in concert where twelve machines shaping world wide
making the same design simultaneously for surfing sake
will increase the think tank pool to a proportion hereto fore
never before availiable. personal growth can progress geometricly
when this electronix transcends geography
and goes exponential…2x2 =4 x4=16 x16=
I aint no mathamagician but
i heard the words and got the concept.
the only block is the intelectual "property block of the 20th century
where the guy that '‘INVENTED’ the paper wrapped wire’s
fortune is rivaled only by the guy that invented the post -it…
for all the attention to design mods
in this surf boarding design
THERE IS NO ONE
KAJILLIONAIRE
so what
velzy was broke many times
morey got industrially mugged
all the designers are reduced to scaming
related products for laundry money
and gas and rent/mortgage grease.
so yes this shaping machine’s
potential for the real undoing
of the’'Industrialized’control
of surfing trends
is the ultimate potential
bite in th arsenscthein
for the oligarchy.
If we are to really come to appreciate the hand made originals
and the ''natural talents ‘’
who have trined to make them
we must have a full spectrum of reproductions
to drive up the value of crooked heavy
hand rolled monte cristos.
…ambrose…
the count of monte cristo endured
to savor the flavor of freedom.
are we free?
yes.
when we escape
imprisonment
we will know it.
Precision and flawless replication are likely lower priority for the do-it-yourselfer. For the guy who wants to add a little personal creativity with his own design, why not?
If that is the attitude that you have, “no problem”! Having my own machine and a power user of Shape 3D I have become Jaded by even the medium sized board builder who would bring me a board to reproduce and when it was less than perfect would run around town telling everyone what a kook I was. For the do it yourselfer just curious and keeping it in perspective it can be a lot of fun and you can reach your goal of creativity and personal design. I say you have the right Ideal. Plus at the time I was just starting to learn the software so I had a lot of egg on my face. One very large board builder even cussed me out. From there I spent about 7 months of my life working on the scanning software and re-engineering my probe to get the accuracy that the industry was requesting. Since that time we have a reproduced hundreds of boards. It still takes a high degree of understanding of the software to take the digital translation in to G-code. However this has become much easier in time like anything else.
Regardless of how pure of a hand shaper you esteem yourself to be? The design factor is much more advance with the CAD approach as you can really create some very good designs. Even Retro’s can be modernized to ride 10X better by keeping the same concept however adding new foil.
For guy’s making a living building boards using a cutting house is just good business and will provide more time to run your business instead of a skill 100 or an Hitachi in your hands for 10 hours a day? For a DO IT YOURSELFER learning how to use an electric planer is a lot of fun and it’s great for the blank companies in helping them to get rid of their seconds. If you want to skip the hand planer and go straight to Cad and design your own your free to do so. However beware of the purist that will hate on you.
I use to be a Landscaper Designer and used a TEE-Square, Mechanical Pencil and an electric eraser. It would take a good week to design the exterior of a custom home including the swimming pool. Also was a C27 contractor so I work for a lot of Architects. This was in the mid 80’s. AutoCAD was becoming vogue at the time. These guys would put together beautiful designs in a matter of a few hours verses the days it would take me. We both had the same vision of the end product only the Architects would have the concept and working drawings together and get us to the end design much faster and the jobs would run smoothly.
At first I hated the Architects because they had a better tool than me. I couldn’t even do a Lotus Spread Sheet (EXCEL today) at the time. Since about 86’ I did every thing I could to learn computers. Always a manual kind of guy it was a tough learning curve. From finishing concrete, laying brick & stone, framing with a hammer (Pre-nail guns), Electrical wiring, bending re-bar, Plumbing the pools and spa’s. Believe me I know the do it yourself mentality, so using an electric planner verses CNC to get to your finish product for argument sakes is a sore button with me. Because they’re all just tools!
Whatever tool can do the better job to make the best product is the tool you should use!
" Planning a surfboard with an electric hand planer is not a great accomplishment in life"
Thanks. And to think I actually ENJOY the planer/sculpting part. Guess I wasted my life.
<a href="http://acesurfboards.com/">http://acesurfboards.com/</a>
I agree with you on this one bud.
I enjoy the artistic and creative aspect of putting my hands on my creation.
Designing and building boards is more to me than something I am trying to make a business of.
It is my artistic outlet.
However…I also get a great deal of enjoyment out of watching one of my designs unfold under the cutting head of a brilliantly crafted CNC machine from time to time.
Some of my design simply can’t be made on machine because they are either too radical, or because I have not learned enough to be able to translate them.
Some of my designs I want cut on machine because I want “pin point” accuracy and as close to absolute symmetry as possible.
To me, neither is any less valid.
Running those machines is an art in itself. If you don’t believe me, try running one yourself.
I couldn’t do what these guys do…at least not without a whole bunch of training
Hell…I am still in training on shaping boards with a planer and sanding block…and hopefully I will be “in training” for the rest of my life.
I refer to my “chainsaw ice sculptor” post from a different thread.
That guy is no less an artist than the guy who uses a hammer and chisel. He is just using a different tool.
Art is art and business is business.
There will always be artists who are broke.
There will always be guys making money from art with no artistic ability.
And there will ALWAYS be those that have the great fortune to do both.
I hope to eventually be in that third category…but who knows.
Mahalo